Diligence pays off.
I have a friend who has an online business and we explored the idea of getting a phone number that was a translation of the name of their business ... you know the sort of thing: 1-800-BUY-BIG.
After evaluating the constraints, the option selected was to get a mobile number. Here in Australia, these are 10 digits long, starting with 04, leaving 8 digits for unique numbers. This was fortuitous as their business name was 8 characters long.
Running through the translation, their name resolved to ONE mobile phone number - so the breath was held as I stepped into the fun and games of tracking this particular number down. I did a call to that number and got cryptic messages indicating it was not active. I then did searches, I contacted providers, all to prove the number was not in use ... and nobody could give it to me. I was able to work out that the number I wanted was more than likely in some retailers "SIM only" stock - and that it was impossible to find out where it was.
Was I frustrated? A little - but I made the decision to not give up, so I did the only thing I could...
I called this number at least once a week for the first six months, then a little less frequently over the next few years - but I never stopped.
Then one day I didn't get the cryptic message. Instead the phone rang! My heart rate jumped. Then my call was answered!!!
I hadn't worked out a speech for this situation, even though it was what I had wanted for such a long time, but I managed to explain the situation and my interest in that particular number. I offered him $100 plus any costs involved in transferring the number.
His response was genuine proof as to why a consistent effort - diligence - paid off.... He had only just acquired this number and hadn't shared it with more than one or two people, so giving it up at this point was not a problem.
He accepted the offer and after we navigated the transfer process (which was not friendly to two parties who did not want to share too much personal information with each other) the number is now transferred and functional as desired.
This exercise took around 4 years - but the result was worth the journey.